The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (21 page)

me, but my vanity and anger prevented me from sharing it. Pushing my hand through my hair I said, “You travel to our world as strangers in time and you dare accuse

me
 
of harbouring falsehoods? Tell me how
 
you
 
are kin to Gawain.” I whirled around and stared at David.

There. It was out. Now he knew I

recognised the dragon in him.

The flower dragon, Gretel, blew a smoke ring or two. Gawain himself popped one eye open.

Guinevere pointed at the wearling and said, “Is this true? You share his auma?”

Gawain stood up and yawned. He beat his wings forward to stretch their muscles, sweeping debris and smoke towards Gretel. I watched her spit a bright orange

cinder off her tongue. She wrinkled her peculiar snout, unamused.

A spark of violet entered David’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “But I can’t tell you how.”

“Why?” I insisted.

For the first time, I felt his anger rising. “If you knew what must become of me and Gawain you might try to alter the timeline yourselves.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Rosa bow her head. Maybe, sometime in David’s future, she would have been moved to change events herself.

“Sit down,” David said.

“No. I will not be—”

“Sit
 
down
 
,” he commanded, and I felt

the full force of the fire within him. A

power I could not hope to defy.

I hunkered moodily, but I did not sit.

“Now,” he said. “Will Agawin, theseer’s boy, speak what he knows or do Ihave to trouble the dragon inside him? Galen, if I’m not mistaken?”

You must speak truthfully now
, said the Fain.
 
In one twelfth part, he is yourbrother
.

I picked up a twig and flicked it at thefire. “I know how Gwilanna can move

through time.”

The temperature in the wood seemed to drop a little. The fire guttered. The tree tops bristled.

I looked at Guinevere. She nodded her

agreement.

So I told them what I knew about the

sibyl’s birth.

“
 
Unicorn
 
auma?” Rosa sipped through her teeth. “No wonder she’s got delusions of grandeur.”

“It’s why she’s being drawn to the Shadow,” David said, picking up a scrap of badly-scorched parchment. Ironically, it was the face of Gwilanna. Gretel

stepped forward and turned it to ash.

“I foolishly revealed this to her,” I said. “Whatever wickedness you predict might happen would not have come about were I not at fault. I have a spark of Galen within me, it is true. He would pledge his allegiance to the last true dragon and so do I. I would join you in your quest, David. I swear on the life of my seer that I will stop Gwilanna.”

“Your request is favourably noted,” he

said. “First, I want to know about your vision of Isenfier. How did that come

about?”

Must I show him? I asked the Fain.

We are surprised he does not alreadyknow
, they said.

I dipped into my robe and pulled out thetornaq. “This was given to me when Hildedied.”

Rosa stared at the charm in awe. “What

the heck is
 
he
 
doing here?”

I looked sideways at her. “You’ve seen

this   before?   You  know   about… the

creature it becomes?”

“Zanna does,” she said, staring at David. “He’s practically part of the family, isn’t he?”

“May I see that?” said David. He held

out his hand. I put the tornaq into it.

“I don’t understand. What creature?”

asked Guinevere.

“The charm shape-shifts into a bird,” I

said.

David rolled the tornaq between hispalms. “Not this one,” he said. He raisedhis hands and let the charm fall. Mynatural instinct was to move to catch it.

Then I remembered what had happened inthe cave and I stayed my move, confidentthe little bird-dragon would appear.

The charm struck a rock and broke into

two.

“No!”   I   dropped   to   my  knees, scrabbling like a mad thing in the bracken. “Where is it? What have you done?”

“I’ve exposed it for what it is,” said

David. “It looks like a tornaq. It’s not –it’s a construct. It’s a fake, Agawin. You’ve been deceived.”

“So where’s the real one?” Rosa said

nervously.

“Stolen,” I muttered, realising what

Gwilanna had done. “She must have

exchanged it while I was sleeping. I
 
knew
 
I should not have drunk her potion!” I slapped the ground and stood up angrily. “I must go to the cave.”

“There’s   no   point,”   said   David, grabbing my robe. “All you’ll find is echoes and dust. Trust me, Gwilanna will be long gone by now. Sit down, Agawin. We need to talk this through – together.”

“But we must go after her. We’re wasting… ” But I could not bring myself to

say the word. Wasn’t ‘time’ what all of this was about? I looked at Guinevere.

The lines of her face were drawn with

worry. Any trust she’d ever placed in Gwilanna was slowly beginning to fall

away.

David picked up the dialogue once more. “At least we know how she gained her knowledge of time. We need to find her now and get the tornaq back.”

“Excuse me.” Rosa raised her hand.

“The tornaq was with a sibyl, you say?”

Her question was aimed at me. “Yes.”

She tightened her lips and looked at David. “How did Groyne get into the clutches of a sibyl?”

“Groyne?” I asked. I was a little confused. “This is your name for the

tornaq creature?”

“I could call him a few other names

right now.”

David steepled his fingers and tapped them slowly against his mouth. “It’s possible he’s part of the natural timeline. He was with an Inuit shaman before

Bergstrom passed him on to me. We’reclose to an Inuit community here.”

I looked at Guinevere, who simplyshrugged. None of this was making senseto us. For now it was better to let the

others talk.

“Come on, David,” Rosa said curtly. “There’s no way Groyne would have gone unnoticed if he’d been cast in Guinevere’s

time. He was with Gwilanna’s
 
mother
.

How could Gwilanna not have known

about that?”

“She was a baby – an orphan, from what Agawin’s just told us”

“I still don’t buy it. If Groyne was around in Gwilanna’s childhood she

would have known and she would have

got hold of him. No, he must have come here from the future, like us… but that doesn’t make much sense either.” She laid

her fingers on her arm. The scars lit up. “My memories of this are slightly sketchy because of the time shifts and all that…

spinning, but wasn’t Groyne robbed of his powers by… ?”

“Gwillan.” David narrowed his gaze sharply, as if a fly had landed on the end of his nose. “You’re right. What’s happened to Gwillan? He was with us at

Scuffenbury, fighting the Shadow… ”

“… but you don’t see him on thetapestry, and you don’t see him on yourdrawing either.”

“Who is Gwillan?” I asked. I was
 
very

confused now.

“Another dragon, like the one in the drawing,” David muttered. “There are many in Elizabeth’s home.”

“Tell him the rest,” Rosa added. Not waiting for David, she turned to us and said, “Elizabeth conceived a son, but his auma left her body before he could be born. It entered her house dragon, Gwillan, who stole the powers of several other dragons, including the tornaq bird we call Groyne.”

“What happened to this…boy-dragon?”

Guinevere asked.

“That’s a very good question,” David

muttered.

But Rosa had an answer. “He turned

into a killing machine.”

“A slight exaggeration,” David sighed.

“He took out a darkling, as… Zanna

recalls.”

“A darkling?” I gasped, remembering

Voss.

“That makes him pretty lethal in my book,” she said. “And here’s the best part of all: What if the bird that Agawin saw isn’t the true Groyne? What if it’s Joseph pretending to be Groyne? We know he can shape-shift. We know he’s clever. We know—”

“Joseph?” said Guinevere. She pushed

one half of her hair off her face. In the

amber firelight, she looked so pretty.

“Joseph Henry: the name Elizabeth would have given her son.” Rosa looked at David again. “It has to be him. What if he’s turned?”

Gretel rattled her scales. A noise

appropriate to everyone’s mood.

David closed his eyes to think. When he opened them again, his gaze fell on me. “You say Hilde had the charm before you, Agawin?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Did it bring you here?”

“I believe it did. I… fell off a

mountain.”

“It saved your life?”

I grunted at him. “Yes.”

David looked at Rosa. “There’s the

answer to your question. If Joseph had been corrupted by the Shadow, Agawin would surely be dead.”

“But why deliver him into Gwilanna’s clutches? And how did Groyne escape from Scuffenbury Hill?”

David’s gaze settled on the heart of the fire. “More importantly, why is it only now that we’ve noticed it? He could be

running this. He could be playing us all.”

“Can you get a fix on him?”

“Not without help.”

“From  Gawain?”   said   Guinevere, seeing David looking. “Surely he’s too young for any kind of quest?”

“Gawain is no ordinary dragon,” said David. “He has the auma of an entire

Wearle inside him. He’s going to growrapidly. Very rapidly. By morning, he’llhave found his wings and his fire. In a fewdays’ time he’ll be the size of these trees.”

I picked up a twig and flicked it away. “When he’s grown, will you send himafter Gwilanna?” In the eye of my mindthe witch was a pillar of flame already.

David swept that hope aside. “No. Iwant you and Guinevere to stick to yourplan. You’re heading for the island,right?”

We nodded.

“Let Gawain see it. He’ll settle there

and be at peace for a while.”

“For a while?” Guinevere looked up,

worried.

“Till the end of his natural life,” David

told her. “Hopefully, if we can catch up with Gwilanna, the rest will fall into place.”

“So how can he help you?” Guinevere asked. She put out a hand and stroked Gawain’s neck. To my amazement, I heard a slight rattling sound and saw a fine row of scales come up. They were also appearing  on  his  wings  and  back, spreading out and hardening like frozen water. In the time it had taken us to reach

the wood he had completed the initial stages of growth. It would take most dragons a turn of the moon to get even near to that. He cocked a leg and passed some water, dousing half the fire.

David said, “I’ll need one of his claws.”

“You would injure him?” Guinevere picked the wearling up and squeezed on one of his four-toed feet. A set of talons

promptly clicked out. Pre-claws, soft, like growing shoots, but they would soon be very capable of ripping out the heart of an evil darkling – or taking the head off a cheating sibyl.

David sat forward and ran his thumb

across them, examining each of the hooks in turn. “If I took out the whole stem, yes, it would hurt him. But I don’t need to do

that. As the claws go through their early growth spurts they shed the armoured casings around the main talon. By morning he’ll be ready for his first real push. The casing is all I need. There will be enough of his auma in that.”

“What magicks will you do with it?” I

asked.

“I’ll write with it, Agawin. Like you will one day.”

I scoffed at him and shook my head. I knew some properties of herbs and I could foretell when the rain would fall, but words had always been a mystery to me. “How can you say this when I cannot even write my name in the dust?”

Dragon ichor is a powerful tool
, said the Fain.
 
With a claw and the right intent, you could.

I was reminded then of David’s

conversation with Rosa, and how he had mentioned a book I had written. I asked